A small cohort of Island Southeast Asian women founded Madagascar.
Proc Biol Sci
; 279(1739): 2761-8, 2012 Jul 22.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-22438500
ABSTRACT
The settlement of Madagascar is one of the most unusual, and least understood, episodes in human prehistory. Madagascar was one of the last landmasses to be reached by people, and despite the island's location just off the east coast of Africa, evidence from genetics, language and culture all attests that it was settled jointly by Africans, and more surprisingly, Indonesians. Nevertheless, extremely little is known about the settlement process itself. Here, we report broad geographical screening of Malagasy and Indonesian genetic variation, from which we infer a statistically robust coalescent model of the island's initial settlement. Maximum-likelihood estimates favour a scenario in which Madagascar was settled approximately 1200 years ago by a very small group of women (approx. 30), most of Indonesian descent (approx. 93%). This highly restricted founding population raises the possibility that Madagascar was settled not as a large-scale planned colonization event from Indonesia, but rather through a small, perhaps even unintended, transoceanic crossing.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
DNA Mitocondrial
/
Marcadores Genéticos
/
Povo Asiático
Limite:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
País/Região como assunto:
Africa
/
Asia
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Proc Biol Sci
Assunto da revista:
BIOLOGIA
Ano de publicação:
2012
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Nova Zelândia